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Many of us who have come from a traditional Christian background have been conditioned to think of God sitting up there in Heaven looking down on us. We have been told that He, (it is always He), is watching our every move, that that we can do nothing without his help. If we are naughty He might even strike us down with a thunderbolt! Many of us have been brought up to think of ourselves as sinners - as unworthy. The words “Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof. Only say the word and my soul will be healed” are said by the congregation in both Roman Catholic and Anglican services. But Jesus never told us that we were unworthy. This phrase is based on the words of the centurion whose servant was ill. It was the servant not the soul that is referred to in Matthew: 8,8. And it was the centurion’s faith, not his humility, that was being drawn to our attention by Jesus because he then said, ‘I have not found such great faith in all of Israel’ When I talked to you before about my book, The Christian’s Dilemma, I talked about how we create everything out of our own consciousness. Both Eastern philosophy and modern physics tell us that we are the creator! So how do we reconcile this view with the idea of an all powerful God. Is He the creator or are we? This is something I wrestled with for a long time until I eventually found an answer in Eastern philosophy. The answer is that there is no conflict between the two positions. We are the creator and God is the creator. Both are true. But how can this be? The only way both can be true is if we are also God! Confused? So am I but let’s see if we make some sense out of this. You may not feel like you are God. You may feel disempowered. That’s OK. We all feel like that, at some times more than at others. But it’s all a matter of perspective. This is the traditional unity versus duality conflict. In the traditional view, God is separate and transcendent, overlooking our feeble efforts to appease him. In the more modern view, God is dwelling in us or “immanent”. If God is everywhere He must be in us. If He is in us, we must be in Him. The Bible confirms that we are God. Psalm 82 states ‘I said you are gods, you are all the sons of the Most High’. Jesus clearly refers to this psalm when He says in John: 10,34 ‘Is it not written in your law ‘I have said you are gods’’? In John: 14,20 He says, ‘On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you’. These are not the words of a God who is separate from humankind. In all the times I have listened to traditional Christian sermons I have never heard this quotation used. I wonder why. Maybe it makes some people feel uncomfortable. Is God up there or is He down here? The problem has been in reconciling these apparently irreconcilable views. Why is it that we always think in binary terms like a computer? We consider only two possibilities. If you are not right, you must be wrong. We see it in politics. One party is right so the others must be wrong. They cannot recognise a good idea if it comes from the opposition but when they get into power they implement it under another name. We see it in religion. “My religion is right therefore yours is wrong”. We see it in the courts where people contradict each other under oath often in genuine belief that they are right. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig writes about the truth trap of yes-no logic. He points out that even binary computers have a third state which is indeterminate. When the computer is switched on, its circuitry is full of ones and zeros with nothing in between. Things are either true or false. What state is it in when it is switched off? This third possibility, he calls Mu, meaning indeterminate, or that the question is too confining for the answer. When a Zen master was asked if a dog had a Buddha nature, he answered ‘Mu’ meaning that the question was incorrect because the Buddha nature is beyond yes or no answers. This type of binary thinking we have been using is called dialectic thinking. It seeks to investigate an argument by working out two extreme positions called a thesis and an antithesis. However, the German philosopher Hegel, described a method by which these opposites are reconciled by a process called synthesis. He referred to a “process of thought in which such contradictions are seen to merge themselves in a higher truth that comprehends them”. The point is that we can have two realities which appear to be in conflict but if we can see a broader reality, we can see how it comprehends or embraces the narrower reality. This is the most important thing that there is to understand about this subject. It’s all a question of perspective. We have been conditioned to see things as either true or false. So seeing God as immanent means that He is in us but also “up there” in Heaven. No conflict. Are we God even though we don’t feel that we are? Yes we have a divine nature, but from our narrow perspective and conditioning we create a reality where we do not appreciate our own magnificence. We have taken on an existence in the narrow confines of space and time, in a five-sensory mode of functioning. The trick, as Gary Zukav says in his bestselling book The Seat of the Soul, is to become multi-sensory beings, to tune in to the spiritual dimension around us. So should we pray to God even though we are God? Of course because at one level we know that the part of us that does not appreciate our magnificence needs help. But we should not be praying “please God have mercy on me a sinner” as I was taught in my youth. Instead we should seek to empower ourselves in every aspect of our lives. For example if we are sick we could ask God to make us better, but maybe it would be preferable to ask God to help us to find out how to heal ourselves. The conflict between the two viewpoints - is God up there looking down on us helpless sinners or down here as well as up there, dwelling in us and us in Him/Her - this conflict often emerges when people speak of God as a person. But is God a person? You see I have to say “Him/Her”. Maybe I should say “It” but it doesn’t sound very respectful. This traditional and separatist view is resisted by the modernists who see “personhood” as far too limiting a concept for God. To them, personhood represents separateness in the physical sense. It is an earthly concept applied to a heavenly being. The dictionary definition of a person is “a human being”. How can that apply to God? Yet traditional beliefs state that there are three persons in one God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now I know that this is Trinitarian and you are Unitarians so you won’t have any problem in seeing God as more than a mere person. But I think the problem has arisen partly due to the limitations of language and the difficulties which existed in the past in explaining theological concepts to a people who were largely uneducated. So we have a problem with language. Our language is simply inadequate to deal with a being who is beyond personhood. Maybe we can get some help from the East. The God of Eastern philosophy is both transcendent and immanent, and perhaps a new and acceptable terminology is needed to address the immanent God. Buddhists do not recognize God as such but talk about reaching Nirvana. It is interesting to note that Buddhists do not worship Buddha but instead follow his teachings. Hindus recognize God as Brahman the ultimate reality but not a person. Their many deities are aspects of God, something like saints in the Christian church. Hindus pray to the deities as manifestations of God, as personifications they can relate to. Both Buddhists and Hindus recommend meditation as a practice which connects the individual to the cosmic self. In the East, gurus and other spiritual figures are respected not because of their power and influence but because of their spirituality. Some are seen as divine incarnations. In the East they recognise the Divinity in others. Spiritual qualities are respected over religious positions of power. People who are of a spiritual disposition are able to recognise this quality in others. We are now beginning to see this in the West. Some people are now being recognised for their spiritual qualities and not due to any hierarchy. I’m thinking of people like Mother Amma, Ram Dass and Gary Zukav. Gary Zukav states that we are changing from five sensory beings to multi-sensory beings. As part of a general spiritual transformation that is taking place we are developing a sixth sense and coming in large numbers to accept that there is more to the world than what we see around us. However, for those who have not appreciated the sixth sense, physical survival appears to be the main basis of evolution because evolution in a spiritual sense is not detectable. Physical evolution is based on the “survival of the fittest” and therefore based on physical power and dominance. People who operate from this principle have a need to control their environment and those within it, says Zukav, and so “the basis of life in the physical arena becomes fear”. This sixth sense has been demonstrated as a human energy field, even though its existence is still not accepted by traditionalists. As Zukav would put it, these people are still operating from a need to control their environment and those within it. Ideas and theories which do not fit with established knowledge can be seen as threatening their security and are treated with fear and suspicion, being viewed only in a five-sensory perspective. In fact science now tells us that matter (including ourselves) is now seen as merely a concentration of energy in an infinite energy field. We are like whirlpools in a river, part of the whole, yet also having a separate identity. It depends on whether you look at it from the viewpoint of a whirlpool or a river. If you think you are a whirlpool you see yourself as separate from the rest of the river. If you think of yourself as a river, you see yourself as one with all the whirlpools. Similarly with the traditional perception of God. If you think of yourself as separate, then you create that reality. If you see yourself as one with God you then participate in a much greater and more empowered reality. Modern Physics and Eastern philosophy agree. This view of God emphasises the connectedness of all beings. It becomes clear that to harm someone else is ultimately to harm yourself. This is not immediately obvious to people until the effect is magnified by the wrong behaviour of the many. Once this is understood, people are less likely to do harm to others. In terms of physics we are all part of the same energy field. It is a field of infinite energy which has existed for all time and will continue for ever. It is everywhere and it is every thing and it even existed before the Big Bang. Its similarity to the attributes of God should not be ignored. Perhaps Modern Physics can become part of the curriculum for religious training in the future. I hope, in my struggling with some of these concepts, I have not put the cat among the pigeons. Sometimes I wonder why I started digging in this particular hole! I have had to think about the implications of these arguments. If I am God what is the meaning of worship? What is the point of prayer? Why can I not make everything better? So we should see that the concepts of unity and duality are not in conflict except in mathematics. On a spiritual level it is all a matter of perspective. From a higher perspective both are true, or to put it another way, reality is different at different levels of awareness. From my level of awareness I must admit that I am still having some difficulty with my divinity. It’s just too good to be true so I don’t create that reality in my life. So for the moment, I’ll settle for duality. As far as unity is concerned, I’m still working on it. Kieran Comerford Dublin Unitarian Church 27th November 2005 © Kieran Comerford 2005 This talk contains excerpts from The Christian’s Dilemma: a guide to the new spirituality. Details at www.kcomerford.com.
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